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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Applications:
ROBERT MARCUS NAMED DIRECTOR OF COLORADO GRID INITIATIVE
Robert Marcus, a longtime industry technology leader, has been named the
Interim Director of the Colorado Grid Computing Initiative, or COGrid, a
statewide computing framework with the ultimate goal of providing
high-performance Grid computing capabilities to all areas and residents of the
state.
COGrid is creating a model of the Grid computing infrastructure for the future
by forging a public/private partnership to integrate high-performance
computers from around Colorado into a general application Grid computing
system that will have a wide-ranging impact on all levels of education,
research and government.
"We are pleased to have Dr. Marcus directing COGrid and are confident that his
vast experience and expertise will lead the initiative to great success," said
Anthony Frank, vice president for research and information technology at
Colorado State University. "Under Robert's leadership, we feel COGrid will
make great strides in enhancing Colorado's K-12 and higher education systems,
improving Colorado's public and private research capabilities, expanding the
state's ability to govern and increasing Colorado's ability to attract and
retain businesses focused on high technology."
Marcus currently serves as a senior research engineer at the renowned SRI
International, an independent, nonprofit research institute that conducts
client-supported research and development for government agencies, commercial
businesses and nonprofit foundations.
"I am pleased to take over the leadership of the COGrid, one of the first Grid
testbeds for the full range of innovative next-generation applications," said
Marcus. "My predecessor, Dr. Ralph Castain, has done an outstanding job
working with faculty at Colorado State University to initiate the development
of a prototype system, and I look forward to extending COGrid across the
state. The Grid Initiative is actively seeking to collaborate with many
partners from the business, system vendor, application software supplier, Grid
middleware, government, education and end-user communities."
Marcus has previously served as chief technology officer for Rogue Wave
Software, director of technology transformation and deployment at General
Motors, as well as in business development and technology leadership positions
at American Management Systems, Boeing Computer Services and Hewlett-Packard.
He also served as associate professor of computer science and mathematics at
the City University of New York from 1973-1984.
Marcus' experience has been focused on the pragmatic use of advanced software
technology in enterprise applications. In 2002, he wrote the book "Great
Global Grid: Emerging Technology Strategies" focusing on the future
convergence of advanced Internet software technologies such as web services,
portals, wireless, peer-to-peer, EAI, distributed resource managers and Grids
into a Global Grid framework.
The COGrid concept seeks to integrate a wide range of Colorado's independent
computing resources into a general application network capable of supporting a
correspondingly broad group of users. COGrid is an entirely new concept: most
current U.S. Grid systems have been constructed for specific scientific
purposes, such as high-energy physics or earthquake engineering, and are not
available to the public. In contrast, COGrid will be available to a wide range
of users, enterprises, and applications, with the goal of eventually becoming
accessible to all Coloradoans.
The COGrid computing initiative was conceived by a joint group of Colorado
State faculty, industry and government representatives. Its activity has been
supported by the university's Information Science and Technology Center, or
ISTeC. COGrid was designed to address several major objectives:
- enhancing Colorado's scientific research and educational capabilities.
- supporting the state's high-tech industry.
- enabling intensive enterprise computing for all companies.
- improving the state's ability to govern by use of advanced computing
capabilities.
COGrid will enhance Colorado's ability to attract and retain high-tech
industry, especially in new areas such as bioinformatics and genomic design,
by offering inexpensive access to a high-performance computing Grid and
hands-on experience in the design and use of Grid systems. Many enterprises
will be able to use the shared computing resources for applications such as
data mining, simulation and statistical analysis.
Beneficial scientific and engineering applications provided by COGrid are
numerous, spanning fields from physics to veterinary science. Through COGrid,
Colorado scientists will have access to high-performance computing resources
across the state, giving them a competitive edge in obtaining future research
grants. COGrid will enhance Colorado's entire educational system by providing
access to high-performance computing for academic institutions across the
state, including universities and K-12 schools.
COGrid will improve the state's ability to govern through the development and
use of advanced modeling capabilities that are enabled by access to Grid
computing resources. Many government applications, such as transportation
planning, environment modeling, statistical analysis, homeland security, and
crisis response simulations, require massive computing resources for short
time periods. The COGrid will economically provide shared resources for all of
these applications.
For more information about the Colorado Grid Computing Initiative, go to
http://coGrid.colostate.edu .
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